Other World Jurai Expedition
by Rhuen
Summary: The Jurai send an expedition into a newly discovered pocket universe; thinking it uninhabited by sentient life they are surprised to make contact with a highly advanced civilization known as the Suihrai.


Preliminary log: It has been a well known fact for many thousands of years that our universe is not alone. There exist numerous higher, lower, and parallel dimensions as well as alternate realities. However due to an incident research into one such reality had until recent years been strictly forbidden. It is this reality we had been hoping to gain permission to research more closely.

Incident Report of importance: The Portal Project, which was designed to open human sized gateways into alternate and parallel realities for the purpose of sending teams through to explore. In hindsight this has been seen as overly ambitious as at the time it was assumed that all parallel realities would be roughly similar to our own reality, it was not foreseen that a reality with breathable air, as this was one of the few things scanned for prior to opening a gateway, could have dramatically different life forms.

Upon opening the gateway to the reality in question a large animal came through. Its body width was small enough to fit through the gateway; however its length was far greater. The creature resembled a giant blue eel with its smooth skin. The end of its tail ended with a strikingly red feather like fin. Its head was silver & metallic in appearance and was somewhere between being cylindrical and rectangular with a triangular beak like tip, however the entire head opened up as one large mouth. On either side of its head were the only openings other than the mouth. These were eight small oval openings with square like blades protruding from them adorning its head, four on either side of the head.

Its size and odd appearance alone would not have deterred the project as it certainly wasn't the first large dangerous animal to be seen during the Portal Project. However it displayed several unusual destructive powers. It could shoot bolts of electricity from the plates on its head and spit out bubbles with strong membranes that exploded with concussive force. Upon killing of the animal by the Jurai royal battle fleet its autopsy showed that its body was made of a unique silver based organic compound. A search of its memory showed that the body of water it came from was home to even larger and even more dangerous animals. It was determined that this world was primitive and home to animals far too dangerous to warrant an expedition.

It should be noted that the reality's label as forbidden was

produced quickly as other more clearly productive realities had been discovered and to prevent any other dangerous life forms from accidentally coming through the Jurai royal council simply labeled the reality as forbidden.

The Dimension Needles Project: 

Three years ago the Jurai royal council approved the use of dimension needles to examine the environment of the reality we have dubbed the Other world as is that extra reality that wasn't fully explored during the Portal project. During the Portal project dimension needles had been used to detect if a perspective reality had a breathable atmosphere, compatible gravity, and for the presence of pathogens.

The dimension needles create small portals in which only they can fit, half of their body protrudes into the reality in question and the other half remains in our own allowing us to detect the conditions on the other side with out exposure or allowing anything to cross over. New additions had been added this time to include visual and audio records of the environment as well as detecting energy signatures and signals that could be produced by artificial machinery or abnormal life forms.

Rather than a single planet side dimension needle as had been done before we opted to use several at varying altitudes as well as locations in orbit to get an overall feel of the total possible environment on the other side as we have been hoping to use a ship rather than going by foot or ground vehicle.

The First needle was placed on ground level, it indicated a water filled environment, or rather it was just at the surface of an ocean, the visual confirmed this and showed that as soon as the needle was through it had drawn the attention of several native life form, they appeared to either be relatives or young larval versions of the eel creature encountered before. These were much shorter, their bodies had a tan to brown appearance, their heads were more of an aluminum color, not quit silver, and the plates were shorter on its head. We were able to deduce by sending various signals that it was an EMP that was emitted by the portal being generated that drew their attention. It is possible the stronger EMP from the larger portal had drawn the larger animal to come through it, it is open to discussion as to what the EMP signaled to the animal, aggression and mating being the top candidates amongst researchers. Either way its possible that it going from the water environment to the dry floor of the Portal room is what caused its sudden and violent behavior. This clearly was not the place we wanted to enter this world for fear of a confrontation with the local wild life.

A second needle was placed at cloud level. We detected normal atmospheric conditions save for something odd just above. It seemed that the cloud layer was being held by an odd gravity bubble. We calculated that we could safely enter below this "bubble" layer; however its presence caused great speculation and the need to study it further, preferably from above it.

The third needle revealed a startling revelation. This universe operated very differently from out own, we utilized several long scan probes to confirm the findings of the needle. We discovered that this universe was filled with gas and clouds rather than empty void; it had multitudes of massive floating islands and continents through out it. The land we had encountered the sea serpent was only one such floating continent.

The continents themselves are absolutely amazing, if one can use a none-scientific description of them. The islands somehow utilize both gravity and anti-gravity forces. They seem to be initially disc shaped with the (underside) utilizing anti-gravity to repel the other continents and prevent collision as well as being the reason they don't form together to form planets. The top side utilizes gravity and because of this is indented in allowing water and loose soil to accumulate; this has created various environments present on each continent. It is still not certain how both forces can co-exist on one land mass, a theory exists that in the area between them a neutralizing force of some kind must be present. This discovery has not only helped allow us to get the go ahead with a ship based expedition but rose our funding considerably and even gotten us labeled as a scouting expedition for future expeditions.

The gravity bubble seems to be a by product of these two forces existing, pieces of the nebular clouds flowing through this universe get trapped in the gravity and form a small temperate zone above the land allowing for varying forms of native weather. This has caused great interest in the biology department at the ScienceAcademy as it creates multitudes of isolated environments in which similar conditions can raise multitudes of different species to arise and even perhaps completely different organisms. These factors have increased the staff of our expedition from only a few exploration scouts to an entire science team. For all these reasons we have been appointed the Royal exploratory science vessel Koromiko and her captain Jira, who were called back from sampling dark nebulas to host our team on this expedition.

Koromiko dossier:

The Koromiko is a 3rd generation Royal tree piloted by Jira Tatsuki, a female Juraien standing 5 foot 5 inches with blue hair and blue eyes. She was trained in the Royal military. She attended as well the ScienceAcademy with a Masters in meteorology and a minor in biology. The Koromiko like all Jurai ships is made of a central module with wooden outer walls designed to the preferences of its pilot. In this case the ship has two fin like structures on its back end and the various branch like arms on the front which fan out and then rejoin away from the module forming a teardrop shape. The over all effect gives the Koromiko the appearance of a racing vehicle and in fact adds to its velocity when in an atmosphere.

Aside from the captain and our own team of six scientists the crew for this expedition will include three observers from the royal court and two elite soldiers, both of whom are of lower rank than Jira.

Science log 1: 

First day: the portal opened with out complications or any intrusions, as we had suspected as the portal was opened between the floating continents to minimize the probability of encountering alien life forms. Upon entering the other universe we took basic atmospheric samples and readings confirming the findings of the dimensional needles.

We quickly located the world where the sea serpent had originated and saw with our own eyes the strange sight of a continent sized floating world like a giant sake dish filled with blue water and several small islands near each other. The small islands oddly enough were mobile, a closer look showed that these islands were made of an unusual magnetic metal that repelled against the sea floor and kept the islands stable and mobile allowing dirt and plant life to form on them. During a closer pass with the ship we found an unusual atmospheric trick we hadn't noticed from above. Seems that while from above the land seemed to be illuminated normally, and was so for most the ocean, the magnetic fields around the islands themselves interacted with the alien forces of this world to cause a twilight light effect.

Our observations have indicated that the strange sea serpent like creatures of this world had no interest in the ship, but a probe we sent out that sent out several variant EMPs was attacked. We have concluded after several tests and observations of the animals themselves that they emit an EMP as a signal of aggression. This ended our first day, which as a note the light in this world seems to be emitted by the nebular clouds themselves present through out this world, but never exceeds the intensity of an overcast sky on worlds with a small yellow sun. This lack of intense light has risen many questions regarding the plant life here, we have taken several samples from the rim of the first world which has small fern like plants and taken one of the strange blue leafed trees that can be found on all the floating islands, as well as a blue leafed bush which had strawberry/pinecone like blue fruit.

Science Log 2:

In this entry we had hoped to examine a few of the other life forms and relate our analysis on the plant samples, however a very unexpected event took place. While hovering in the area between the various "worlds" as we have come to dub them, we encountered what may have been a vessel. It looked oddly Juraien yet distinctly different. In the location of the central module there was instead a giant red octagonal crystal like structure. On its underside was a flat black wooden structure very similar in appearance to what many Jurai ships have. The back end had fin like structures similar to those on the Koromiko only sharper with three red orbs evenly placed on each fin along the "blade". The sides had a thick black wooden structure as well. On either side of the central crystal structure was a long leg like structure, giving it the appearance of having two long arced limbs reaching out in front of it. Along the dorsal side of these rigid "limbs" were evenly placed thorns with a longer hook like one on the "elbow" of each arm. The thorns on the front of the limbs facing in the direction it traveled were shaped conical and pointed forward, giving the impression that they may be guns of some kind. We sent several signals from radio waves to sub-space signals with no response. The vessel made no attempt that we could detect to signal us. As quickly as it had appeared it flew off, leaving us with many questions. The first being was this was a vehicle, a probe, or perhaps some kind of life form?

Science Log 3:

Our ship has been ordered to remain in position for a second ship to back us up on this expedition. I will be writing sub-sets for this entry as new information becomes present.

Sub: 1: Our captain, Jira, didn't appear too happy today, she even took to sitting in her captain's chair tapping Biyone, her control key, in her hand. Before I continue for those who don't know, like all Juraien control keys for Royal ships Jira's Biyone was made from a fallen branch of her tree the Koromiko combined with technology. Like all control keys hers has a unique shape fitting her personality and preferences. She has it shaped like a short handled harpoon, the end, being wood just like the entire key rather than metal; spreads out flat in a triangular shape, the edges aren't sharp but rounded. The base of the key has four aerodynamic fins. As a personal note I (the chief science officer for the expedition) have only seen her use the key once as a weapon (not during this expedition to date), she would throw it like a harpoon while it glowed green with Juraien energy and would return to her hand. She seems to grow more agitated as we wait for our back up ship to arrive.

Sub 2: The reason for her displeasure would appear to be that the council decided that since the Koromiko was meant to explore and analysis this world for scientific research that we needed a second ship to watch out backs in case these unknown vessels or life forms turned out to be hostile. While our ship is down on one of the worlds doing research the second ship will remain high above watching out for us. Of course Jira would understand this so it is a surprise that she seemed to be unhappy about the decision.

Sub 3: Sub 2 has turned out to be a mistaken assumption. The true reason for her displeasure became evident when the second ship arrived. I had never before seen this ship, seems it is one of the Juraien military's deep space exploration vessels much like the Koromiko. The shape of the ship was like that of a boat as though it had been designed to float on water more so than fly through the air. It has two pillars coming out the top and two out the bottom that were hinged it seems to pull back when it lands on water. This assumption was later confirmed when we looked over the dossier of this other ship. For the record I supposed I have to list the ship's name, the Valhalla, a very unusual name for a Juraien ship.

The Valhalla's captain turned out to be Jira's cousin Doramo Tatsuki, or Thor for as he likes to be called, a very boisterous elite soldier in the Juraien military. In appearance he is very different than most Juraiens, I learned that he spends most his time when not exploring, training and increasing his own physical and spiritual power. His hair is a rusty red color and cut in a very unusual style, according to him when we met their crew his hair style was something he found on the developing world Earth, a style called a mullet.

His personality seems to be an exact opposite of Jira's while she is serious and professional all the time while keeping up an appearance of traditional Juraien styles, Thor is constantly laughing and being overly excited, he seems also to have embraced a style referred to as Nordic. The inside of his ship is colder, with more pine plants and thick furred animals. He and his crew wear thick faux animal hides rather than traditional Juraien styles. Even his control key is odd; it has a short handle with a square loop on top, with a blue tech gem at the top of the loop. This wand like appearance it seems is offset when he activates it, as a blue energy point appears in the middle of the loop and forms out into a war hammer like shape. Energy weapon control keys are rare as they have a high energy demand on their ships, however it would seem Thor and his ship Valhalla both share the personality trait of increasing their own personal powers. While Jira may not be happy, our crew is glad to have such a clearly strong captain and crew, the crew seems to have a regiment of intense training, behind us should something go wrong.

Science Log 4:

We scanned the blue fruit we found from the twilight lighted islands. The fruit we determined is edible, and the mixture of textures and juices would appear to be delicious. We have collected seeds and stored them in time freeze for later cultivation as new fruits are always welcomed by the Juraien merchant's guild.

(Jira Tatsuki's report desk)

The preceding was the scientific log for the expedition by our head science officer up to the day we made contact with the Suihrai. While the expedition was originally meant to collect and analysis life forms and such from this alternate reality, contact with the Suihrai changed that. I had all members of both crews and the science team write reports regarding what they had seen, however I have decided for this official summary to only include three reports, each reflecting a unique and precise point of view of the events that took place. Here are the three reports from first our head science officer, then Doramo Tatsuki, and finally myself, Lady Jira Tatsuki regarding our first meeting with the Suihrai.

Scientific Expedition leader report:

Our research team was down on the surface of one of the floating worlds (a heavily forested one), retrieving samples of plant life and video taping the wild life. We were video taping a pack of large reptilian wolf like creatures as they fed on an odd deer like animal with one large metal horn on its head when the incident occurred.

The Koromiko was flying over head as the Valhalla was out of our visual range above it. As I was zooming in the video to observe the dynamics of the reptiles' pack behavior one of my subordinates quickly grabbed my attention to point out that the unknown vessel had returned. It was hovering in front of the Koromiko as the Valhalla was to the Koromiko's right side. We saw no signs of conflict, for the record I turned the video recorder upwards to observe the scene.

As I was recording the three ships hovering near each other something spooked the animals we had been observing which took off down hill towards thicker brush. Our curiosity over that was short lived as several small odd looking objects hovered towards us.

I will try to describe as best I can what one looked like, it looked like three smaller objects joined together at the base, each of the three looked like a finger tip with a long straight claw in its end. The three finger tip parts were joined as though the undersides were somehow glued or otherwise attached together but didn't appear to be connected directly. The three claw points came out from the front giving them a very dangerous appearance. The small objects numbered about five or six, its hard to recall exactly as they spun about seemingly at random, spinning on their axis and spinning around each other. They appeared to be observing us, and as quickly as they came they left.

What we saw next was fantastic; the unknown vessel overhead changed its appearance. The black extensions became blue and folded out like giant leaves, I can't be certain but the central module on it also appeared to change shape, becoming blue and round, I can't be certain as it might have just started glowing instead. It was soon after this that the vessel vanished and we were called back to the Koromiko. Captain Jira Tatsuki quickly swore us into secrecy about the incident except for this report which I have written shortly after returning to the Koromiko. Captain Jira Tatsuki has said she will tell us everything that happened after we each have written our reports on the subject, she has ordered that they be brief and to the point. This brings my report to the moment that I am writing it.

From the Desk of Thor:

From the desk of Thor the mighty thunder god, ha, ha, ha. Any who seeing as this is an official report guess I have to use my official name. This report is by me, Doramo Tatsuki captain of the Valhalla. The situation was indeed a pretty odd one. The ship we had seen video of reappeared in front of the Koromiko. I steered the Valhalla to a defensive position but was ordered by Jira to stand down, apparently the alien ship sent her ship a transmission indicating a peaceful intent or something like that. We had to just sit around with our thumbs up our asses while Jira and the alien ship talked to each other. I thought we were about to see action when the weird ship changed shape, those weird bug like wooden legs turned all blue and leaf like and the central module went from being a ruby looking thing to a blue ball looking thing. But it turns out the thing was going into a "peace mode" which Jira told us just as it was changing shape so we wouldn't be alarmed. She went back to their private conversation while we stayed on stand by. The alien ship flew away and Jira told me I had to write this pointless detail lacking report about how I sat around on my ass for the last hour or so while she and the alien ship yakked up a storm. So here it is my pointless report about sitting around, she says I'll get to know more after I'm down writing this, guess I'm off to learn what I should have known to give the council a real report.

Jira Tatsuki Jurai: The first encounter with the Suihrai:

*Personal report by Jira Tatsuki omitted from official public record by order of the Imperial house Masaki Jurai*

[What follows is the summarized version as written by the Jurai Royal Council in co-operation with the Galaxy Police and Academy of Science]

During there exploration of the alternate dimension hence forth referred to as "Other World" as named by the local sentient inhabitants, the crew of the Koromiko, the science team they were hosting, as well as the crew of the Valhalla encountered said sentient life forms.

Said sentient life forms hence forth known as "Suihrai" had been observing the exploration since their arrival over the local "Floating Continent World" known to them as "The Twilight Isles". During the exploration's exploration of another "world" known to the locals as "The Dark Forest" the Suihrai chose to initiate first contact with the exploration vessel the Koromiko.

The contact with the alien race was peaceful, however the area of the alternate reality in which the exploration team visited is part of the Suihrai's shared territory with several other undisclosed races, further exploration of the area hence forth can only be initiated with the approval of the Suihrai or through them by one of the undisclosed races. The Suihrai have agreed to allow a communications array to be set up in the space between the Twilight Isles and the DarkForest for communication with them and if talks allow an introduction with some of the other sentient advanced races present in their universe.


End file.
